Cross your Heart
by Ryuuzenga Rio
Summary: Ganlon Pave 27 was all she ever needed. Salmon pink walls, a large porch, and a peaceful society. But in a world of war where humans have yet to achieve harmony with Pokemon, can a Lucario truly find solitude?


Answers now, no questions later;

1 - During the Freedom War between the humans and Pokemon, the humans began calling Pokemon by the Synns, ancient Pokemon for demon.

2 - After the Freedom War, the Kanto region was renamed as the Noira region, the Sevii Islands as the Geofia Islands, the Johto region as Yukado, the Hoenn region as the Burlaire region, the Sinnoh region as Cielra. Due to the lingering hostility in most individuals, Humans/Synns communities were hard to come by.

3 - The short 6-year period in between the Freedom War and the Anti-Synn War was referred to as the Pokemon Era.

4 - After the Anti-Synn War that lasted for 2 years, the Synn Era began (SE 1). Still, some humans did not fully accept Synns as beings capable of individual thought and feeling until 17 years after the Anti-Synn War (SE 18). In those 17 years, illegal acts like poaching were not uncommon. Rare items like Gabite scales, Lucario spikes, Nidoqueen horns and Ninetails pelt could be found in the black market for high prices.

* * *

**Cross your Heart**

The incident that came to be known as the Verdant Massacre began at 9:48 pm, on the night of March 19. The term was a misnomer of course, but within twenty-four hours of the incident, most of the humans capable of pointing that out were dead. The name hardly mattered in any case. What mattered was the incident itself.

*****

At nine o'clock that night, a young Lucario gazed out of a window along Ganlon Pave of Sherrom, an expression of undoubted contentment on his face. His name was Reun Haccio. His was waiting for someone, you might have guessed, and you would have been right. Ganlon Pave 27, the place with the window which this Reun Haccio was gazing through, was a rather airy bungalow he had bought it from a handsome young Luxray hammering a "for sale" signboard into the ground on his walk back from Maudre (Viridian City) to Sophina (Blackthorn City) where he had been staying. He was frightened by the price of the house when he asked for it, somehow even more frightened by the realization that he could now afford such a thing.

Handing his notes over to the Luxray had taken almost physical courage, but he doubted if he could have done it if the place had been for himself, he would have muttered something about having changed his mind and scuttled out of the Luxray's view. But it was for Fleur. He wanted to reignite that lively side he loved if that was still possible, after all the shit they've been put through since the Anti-Synn War. He was sure she would love the salmon pink walls and the delicate Ganlon trees speckling the meadows, and she did.

_I … ADORE you_, she had said that morning they arrived at Ganlon Pave 27, when the wooden furnishings still smelled fresh. Afterwards they had had a vehement debate trying to cheat each other into saying the four-letter L word. _You'd say it first_, Reun had said so long ago. Since their first date neither were willing to submit, and he suspected they both were subconsciously doing it to preserve their delicate relationship. If that was the case it had worked out reasonably well he thought, although he thought his love was starting to feel a little on the empty side. But she still liked him, and that had in a way touched him.

Fleur had left Ganlon Pave 27, _to explore this place a little_, she had said three and a half hours earlier. By now Reun had a mild twinge of doubt, sipping a little faster the coke in his paws, telling himself she must have been occupied with something interesting. After three and a half hours of exploring into the evening, a tranquil nightfall in a mere town of population 482, she pretty much _had_ to be stuck in a mini mart buying groceries, right?

Reun set down his coke glass onto the desk beside him, watching as a black van pulled over before Ganlon Pave 27. _Probably bothered some kind men for a lift back, Fleur_, Reun told himself as his spirits rose in anticipation, finding himself trying to stare through the dark windscreens on the van. _Or maybe it's not black, just the shadows._

Three men left the van, but no Lucario.

Reun felt his heart drop again, but this time with a sense of insecurity. He was intimidated by the realization that they were walking _towards_ Ganlon Pave 27, somehow even more intimidated by the dark jackets they wore. He could swear he had seen one of them holding a long stick when he had closed the van door. Reun switched off the lamplight and sank himself into the double bed, inhaling eagerly the lingering scent of Fleur's fur. He had not seen the men in black stride across the lawn, nor had he seen them stepping onto the porch, but what he did hear was the knock upon the door he never would hear again.

Sweat had started forming on his forehead as Reun exited his room and jogged down the stairs, every footstep upon the floorboards making him wince. If it weren't impolite to leave a guest at the door, he would have shouted something about waking him up in his sleep and drove the men in black off his porch with an Aura Sphere. Stepping before the doorway had driven him half-insane, stuck mentally in between _open the friggin door_ and _chase those fuckers away_, finding himself unable to chose between the two.

He did neither. He knocked upon the door.

His rationality snapped completely, Reun twisted the doorknob, almost breaking it off, and threw open the door wide, revealing the barrel against his head.

The body knows how to react when it has to, a secret that the body keeps, just as it does the secrets of how to run or jump a crevice or die when there's no other choice. Under conditions of extreme stress it simply takes over and does what needs doing while the mind stands aside, unable to do anything but tap its foot or arch backwards to evade a gun's range of fire.

Reun pressed his body parallel against the door just as the man in black fired his rifle, allowing the bullet to chip his cheekbone instead of blowing a hole into his head. Reun didn't think. He simply redirected the rifle's trajectory as it fired a second shot into the floorboard and jabbed the man hard in the chest with an instantaneous Bullet Punch. The man collided with the other man in black behind him just as Reun's body meant him to do and into a tree, knocking both of them breathless.

The last man drew a pistol from his belt and shot Reun in his leg as he stepped back into the house. Reun fell backwards and half-screamed in pain, blood spurted from his leg as the bullet penetrated his flesh. For the instant he glanced down at his bleeding wound his mind blanked out, forgetting everything that would happen to him afterwards. All Reun would remember would be the man in black aiming his gun to take his life and him collapsing a moment later onto the ground with his torso smoking.

When the mind stands aside for the body to take over, it sometimes overlooks certain important details like that one was dying or one had a fucking hole in his leg for this matter. Reun didn't wait for the men in black to recover and neither did he close at least the door, he just got up with his good leg and stumbled back into the house. As he climbed the stairs he wasn't aware of the persistent throbs in his leg, and he didn't know where to go but his body somehow did. Before Reun reached his room he would hear footsteps other than his, and it would be just a matter of time before the men in black found him in this small a house. He wished he had bought a bigger one.

Reun's mind was spinning so fast, he felt he couldn't control either mind or body anymore. For a moment Reun regained his mind, with the pounding fear in his chest acting as some kind of switch to his brain. But sometimes the conscious mind makes the wrong decisions that the bodily instincts are intended to avoid, which he would ultimately find out for himself. Reun didn't hide in his room, instead his locked the door to his room and lurched into the bathroom. He managed to fall into the bathtub with some trouble with his bleeding leg.

And now that all he had left to do was to wait, he noticed that his leg was looking somewhat off-color with his blood unstopping. He probably bled all the way from the porch. And the men in black would find him. And they would kill him.

That's what they were. Poachers.

Unable to think of anything else to do, Reun pulled the translucent plastic curtains over the bathtub, but that somehow just made him feel more insecure. Something he thought of in the middle of waiting, the overly sweet smell of iron was beginning to intoxicate his senses. Slowly, without looking down, he pawed his leg with his right, fearing what he would find.

All he did was blood.

His breathing became heavy, he could feel even his arteries throbbing under his eyelids. A faint silhouette shadowed the curtains, the sound of footsteps grew louder, that it sounded right next to him. Reun's next actions would decide between life, death and if he would ever see his lover again, he knew that well himself.

The moment he pulled aside the curtains, he felt multiple bullets tearing into his chest. He fell soundlessly back into the bathtub, his voice muffled by his own pain. The man in black closed in to the fallen Lucario, his enraged face burning into his blank expressions. Keeping the pistol pressed to his neck, he procured from his belt a blade and waved it before his face. Slowly. Surgically.

"Die you fuck."

Reun's mind was burning with the fading image of the Lucario he loved.

For the first and last time in years, Reun cried.

*****

At nine fifty three that night, a young Lucario of no seeming importance to history jogged along the less populated stretch of Ganlon Pave, her movements fatigued, but definitely cheerful. Her name was Fleur Legarand. She was in a hurry to return to the embraces of her home, you might have guessed, and you would have been right. Ganlon Pave 27, the place where this Fleur Legarand was jogging to, was a sort of present from Reun; he had bought it from some young Luxray sometime during his trip to Maudre. She had been thrilled when she heard from him, even more so when she actually moved to the place.

Reun was right that she would love the place. The exterior walls were a striking salmon pink, the porch was indescribably welcoming, and she couldn't have resisted plucking a Ganlon from the trees if only they were hers. Reun had touched her, she had never thought that he would go so far to show that he cared. She would have said the four-letter L word to Reun earlier, if they hadn't been pushing each other since forever to say it first. But she loved him, and she knew he did too, it was the matter of who would say it first.

Fleur had left for town earlier, excusing herself to repay him with something. The humans in town were open enough, friendlier than any other she had seen after the Anti-Synn War. An old man she had had a conversation with was pleasant enough, although too talkative and senile to her liking, even some Goths in a dark van she had seen some moments ago. After browsing the stores without finding anything Reun might have liked, she had entered hesitantly an antique shop, where she had found a rather cheap glass paperweight with an ice blue center. If it had been any cheaper she would have muttered something about fakes and left the shop with an excuse, but it looked too well made to be from slave-run factories.

Where the Wiki trees were scattered was Ganlon Pave 27, and she could see already those salmon pink walls and the lighted rooms from where she was. Fleur moved a bit faster, feeling the weight of the glass paperweight bouncing in her pouch on her belt. She could almost imagine Reun's delight, his expression when she would take the paperweight out from her pouch, even his soft lips as he kissed her. She stepped onto the porch, feeling a sense of security once her feet touched the cool wood out in the night. But as soon as it reached her, it left her.

If she wasn't seeing things, and she wished she were, there was blood on the porch.

She pushed in, she didn't even consider if the attacker might still be inside. The door bounced against the wall loud enough to startle Fleur herself, and her eyes trailed the blood, all the way up the stairs. The blood was still considerably fresh, some even smudged by shoeprints. She didn't think. Her desperation had taken over her mind when she rushed up the stairs, only to be rewarded with more blood. She paused enough to notice blood on the doorknob on the door to her room and stopped at the bathroom.

The shower curtains were pulled over the bathtub, and sprayed with blood from inside. Whoever was bleeding was still inside.

The smell of blood was still fresh enough to intoxicate her senses, her mind began to swoon from all the anxiety. She didn't know to open the curtains or not. She was frightened by the idea of a dead Lucario lying in her bathtub, somehow even more frightened that Reun might have fallen from the porch and was now bleeding to death in her bathroom. Either way it was Reun. It was the Lucario who she _loved_.

Fleur ripped the curtains off its hooks, wet blood spraying onto her fur.

Reun was lying sideways to the other direction, blood filling up the bottom of the bathtub.

"Reun?"

Fleur whimpered, tears coming to her eyes, unsure to touch the Lucario or not, and she reached out tentatively to turn his body around, half-expecting a dying Reun to revive and grab her arm. The moment she touched his shoulder, she knew he was dying, or dead. Fearing the worst, she pulled, and instantly fell to the ground.

There was a fucking hole in his chest where his spike should have been.

Fleur was crying now, unaware that she was rubbing blood onto her muzzle. Her family had died in the Anti-Synn War, and now Reun was dead. The one and only person in the world she cared about was gone. Never would she talk to him again. Never would she feel his warmth again. Never would she spend her nights with him again.

"God! Wake Up!"

Fleur got to her knees and grabbed Reun's body.

"You got me! Now stop playing around!"

Fleur screamed and shook Reun's body like a rag doll, blood splattering onto her face.

"Talk to me you fucker!"

Fleur hugged Reun to her chest, not caring that blood was pouring down her thighs like water. Reun was half out of the bathtub, his own blood lapping at his feet, as if begging for mercy.

"Fuck! I love you! I love you! I love you! I said it! Now talk to me!"

The only sound as she held him was her own voice.

"Don't leave me … I love you …"

And never would he be there when she needed him.

*****

_I tried picking up his cold lifeless paw … a carcass missing the weight of a soul. The softness of life was no longer there … quite the opposite, it was as stiff as a board._

_Is our purpose for being born just to die like this?_

_It's as if I have become its messenger, and I smiled to myself._

"_His purpose for coming into this world is to die with its guts splattered …"_

"… _I, too, will die this way someday."_

*****

At ten fourteen that night, a young man of the age of twenty-four listened to the thundering music as his friend drove down Ganlon Pave, an expression of undoubted annoyance on his face. His name was José Livingstone. This José Livingstone had had a bad experience that night, you might have guessed, and you would have been right. Their so-called planned poaching had gone somewhat out of plan, resulting with his head having been smashed right into a Wiki tree. That night Beaver and Clay had coaxed him into going Lucario-poaching with them, and if the reward hadn't been that high he would have told them something about having a midnight party and went straight back to bed.

José hadn't killed anyone since the Anti-Synn War, but then, nobody really cared if you had killed or died in those days. It was for his better future, he kept telling himself. After the war he had nearly killed Mary when she had woken him from his sleep, and had had a divorce with her, then soon after that, he had lost everything in his shipping business, and even his house. He needed a new house, a new job, a new life. And he was sure that the Lucario spikes would sell for enough money for him to start over. Then again who didn't need money these days, damn it even the Synns did.

José unconsciously brought his hand to his head, feeling for any signs of a contusion. His head was aching like hell (what can you expect from bring thrown into a tree?), but he knew his friends had had it worse, he could tell being hit square in the chest with an Aura Sphere wasn't much better. At any rate no one was complaining, they had kept silent all the way from the Lucario's house. Beaver had been chewing solemnly on his goddamn toothpick while driving again, José had always said that that would bring upon himself his ultimate downfall. Clay was once again being that no-lifer he was, inspecting the Lucario arm spike with undoubted glee on his face, his obsession made even José want to hurl.

He spat in disgust, turning to look at the night road before them illuminated only by the van's headlights and the faint moon.

"Holy shit! Look out!"

"Fuck whoaaaaaaaaaahhh!"

Beaver nearly screamed till he was hoarse, incredibly at the same time keeping his toothpick in his mouth, and swerved past the person on the middle of the road. The van spun almost one full circle before smashing driver-side first into a Ganlon tree and the airbag blasted square into José's face, several Ganlon berries raining over the van for an extra measure.

José grunted as he grabbed his forehead. He could swear the Ganlon tree had fallen over with them when the van had been driven into it. He looked over to see Beaver spit out fragments of toothpick fibers from his mouth. He would have laughed aloud if his head hadn't been hit by the airbag the way a boxer punches his opponent in his face.

"Fuck! I almost choked on this shit!"

This time José _did_ laugh.

"You okay, Clay?"

"Better than my chest ouch - OH MY GOD WHAT THE FAAAAAAAAAA!"

The same person who the van had almost ran down was now standing in front of the van, dark irises glowing a bloody crimson. Although the left headlight had fragmented, José could still see the face of a female Lucario staring straight at them, her expression so savage, he found his jaws wide open in a silent scream.

José would wish Beaver had never swerved the van.

José couldn't see Clay from where he was, but he could _hear_ that he was screaming with his shoulders pressed flat into the backseat. José's hands edged unconsciously to his lap for the reassuring cold smooth of metal, then he remembered that they had left the rifles lying in the boot. His mind and body were conflicting over scream and run, rooted to his seat due to his indecisiveness. The Lucario raised her arm, the spike on her arm gleaming like a blade, her lips pressed flat in a straight line. José was sure she would slug him. Hard.

Her arm broke through the windscreen, shards of glass hailing onto José, and grabbed Beaver by his shirt.

Beaver yelled and pulled at his collar as he was dragged out of the van via the broken windscreen, too stunned to do anything else. José thought that was the first time he had seen Beaver without a toothpick in his mouth.

The Lucario ran her arm spike dead into his chest, Beaver's scream dying in his throat as soon as he felt the cold steel prodding his ribs. José didn't realize that all this time he had been doing nothing as he watched a crazed beast assault Beaver, neither did he notice that Clay had stopped screaming and was doing the same thing. _I'm watching a horror movie. Live._

The Lucario thrust Beaver against the tree, and his ribs fractured.

Beaver couldn't even cry his pain, his punctured lungs were loosing air like a deflating balloon. Every time he tried to inhale to replace the oxygen he had lost, blood spout from his chest the way a sprinkler waters plants.

The Lucario kept her arm spike pierced into his chest, and pressed a compressed Aura Sphere into his leg. Beaver choked when his leg burst forth a jet of blood, the Wiki tree behind him erupting splinters of wood and bark as the Aura Sphere shot right through his leg and the tree. He glanced at José weakly as he uttered his last words.

José couldn't hear it, but he knew what he had said.

He threw open the van door and escaped into the forest at the other end. He didn't stop to see if Clay had followed him, all he could think of was to run as far as he could without dying. Without being killed by that demented Lucario. Fuck, he would never underestimate females again _if_ he even got off alive.

José didn't know how long he had been running, he might have even been running around in circles. Only did he stop when he heard the crunch of dry leaves behind him over his heavy breaths. José froze in his path, his eyes alert and terrified, his chest throbbing so violently he could swear he was experiencing coronary thrombosis.

"Clay?"

He strode around to confirm there was no one close. What he saw made him want to throw up.

Clay was sprawled against the base of a Ganlon tree, small holes bleeding all over his chest, a huge dark patch in the middle, still fresh and spurting. But what really frightened José were his blank eyes staring into nothingness, and his mouth, god, that ghostly shadow of a smile.

_Look ma, I'm dead._

José started tearing, tugging at his hair in desperation. Clay was laughing. Laughing at _him_. _You're going to die. Die just like me._

"You killed Clay!"

José found himself backed into a tree, pulling at his sweat-drenched shirt in complete dread, still staring into Clay's sinister eyes.

"YOU KILLED BEAVER YOU FUCK! WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT?"

Somehow he knew the answer. _Because you killed me._

"IT WASN'T MY FAULT GODDAMN IT!"

For a moment he saw a flash of light, then his right thigh erupted a fountain of blood as his bone literally exploded.

The pain was gigantic, terrible. He had never suspected that there could be so much pain in the world. And José _did_ scream. The whole forest seemed to reverberate in his agony.

One moment he was howling, the next the Lucario was next to him, her muzzle posed beside his ear, whispering, so sweetly, so deadly.

"How do you feel?"

José could only whimper in respond. The next thing he knew, the Lucario had laid a paw against his chest and his lungs felt as if they had been doused with lighter fluid and then set on fire.

"FUUUUUCCCK! YOU CRAZY BITCH!"

"See what I see."

The Lucario waved an Aura Sphere the size of a pea before his eyes, and before José could even shiver, pressed it to his chest.

His lungs were burning again, and gushing blood like a punctured bottle. The pain was enormous, brightly excruciating. José couldn't even summon the air to yell, his lungs themselves were screaming for oxygen. They had been punctured, goddamn.

"Hear what I hear."

Hear what she hear? The Lucario must have been fucking nuts. But then … José _had_ heard something, hadn't he?

_Of course you have._ Clay was fucking laughing again. Laughing at him. _We are the voices of the departed._

Another flash of light. José's brain couldn't even register any other feelings besides his rapidly collapsing lungs.

"Feel what I feel."

The Lucario withdrew her arm for the last time, readying the final blow. And at that moment José knew that she was something more than a Lucario. It was something possessed of a malign, murderous intent.

He caught one last glimpse of that black and blue face below her flattened ears, her eyes enormous and filled with lunatic hate. It had gotten rid of Beaver and Clay and now it was going to get rid of José Livingstone.

Then she brought her arm down.

*****

It was ten thirty nine that night, a young Luxray strolled down Ganlon Pave humming faintly to himself, an expression of peace and contentment on his face. His name was Yukitou Hikaru. Well what else can he be doing other than having an evening walk, you might have thought, and you would have been right. This road which this Yukitou Hikaru was traveling, he had found delight in exploring the Ganlon forests as the sun was down. He had regretted quite a bit having sold Ganlon Pave 27 to a Lucario, he had missed the place dearly, but he no longer had the money to maintain two houses at once. Today he had another reason to be walking down Ganlon Pave.

Hikaru hoped he had chosen the right time to intrude on Reun's time, he reminded himself it was now the couple's property instead. As he neared its salmon painted walls, he was surprised mildly that all the lights were on. Some sort of celebration, he decided. But he changed his mind the moment he stepped onto the porch.

There was dried blood on the door.

Hikaru looked at the door again, telling himself that someone had tripped and grazed his knees. Blood on the door pretty much _had_ to be an accident, right?

He nudged the door with his paw and it creaked open. They hadn't closed it. Question was, was that good or bad?

Hikaru pushed open fully the door, uncertain to enter, and when he did, he would have fallen if he hadn't been quadrupedal.

"Re-Reun?"

Fleur was laid back on the sofa, her natural fur caked with dried gore, her eyes were sheen, glazed, lunatic. The blue spherical lump of glass she rolled about soundlessly in her bloodstained paws.

Opposite her, and set against an armchair, was Reun, missing the spikes a Lucario would have, his fur dull and soiled. And his eyes were percolated. Dead.

At that moment, Hikaru didn't know to cry or to run. Slowly, he swallowed and walked towards Fleur.

And the blue glass in her paws glowed.


End file.
